Nguyen Chanh Thi

Nguyen Chanh Thi (23 February 1923-23 June 2007) was a South Vietnamese ARVN Lieutenant General during the Vietnam War.

Biography
Nguyen Chanh Thi was born in Hue, French Indochina in 1923, and he joined the French Army in 1940 during World War II at the age of 17. He was captured by Japan during the invasion of French Indochina, only to escape a few months later. In 1949, he joined the French-backed Vietnamese National Army, and he helped to crush the Binh Xuyen in Saigon in 1955 and was regarded as a son by Ngo Dinh Diem, the President of South Vietnam. Diem gave Thi command of the Airborne Brigade, but Thi was forced to flee to Cambodia after a failed coup attempt in 1960. He returned after the 1963 South Vietnamese coup and became deputy commander of I Corps under Nguyen Khanh, whom he assisted in seizing power in 1964. He and Nguyen Cao Ky became the foremost officers in the junta after ousting Khanh from power, but Thi's involvement with antiwar Buddhist activist groups led to Khanh dismissing Thi in 1966. This led to a Buddhist uprising which was crushed, and Thi was forced to flee to the United States, dying in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 2007 at the age of 84.